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Post by Kachu on Jun 14, 2023 14:40:30 GMT
Yeah I've slowly been coming to the same realization myself, unfortunately.
I don't know how it would come off to retroactively change the mechanics like that, but I can bring it up and see what other players feel just in case. It's jank to change things during the game like that but it's better to try something instead of leaving things as they are?
Energy on Lynch isn't a bad idea, and it honestly might make things easier? The lynches were already going to be cut down to 3 each Cycle, since after the last Dusk there's no need to lynch anymore, the keyholder also has no reason to hide their identity anymore. I'm not sure if that would need to stay the same if the mechanics were changed or not.
At the moment the plan was to have the first round of info cost 4 energy, and the second cost 6. With four work cycles, that'd actually be MUCH more energy than I planned it around. So the fourth and final work will be cut again, since I balanced things around players having 24 energy and not 32 maximum. Which means I think I'm going to end up cutting the final work cycle again too! Haha. A little embarrassing how I messed up like that.
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Post by Panda on Jun 14, 2023 14:48:14 GMT
Oh yeah typically these cycles end on a night phase, not a day phase.
Getting the numbers right is hard! Especially, as I said, without any playtesting, which is just unfortunately the reality of running these games.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 14, 2023 14:56:16 GMT
I'll say funnily enough I was thinking how good it'd be that on an arc victory, the Employees get extra energy.
(I'll also say that your role was never meant to see who visits you, you were to give energy on your death instead, which would only happen through an execution, but I managed to at least see how unfun that'd be when you're lynched on sight every time for cashmoney)
I'll think about the numbers a little bit and propose the change to giving energy on a successful Witch Lynch. But I do fear that with only 3 executions, knowing you got at least one of them confirmed might be a bit much? Hrmm.
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Post by Panda on Jun 14, 2023 15:05:08 GMT
Whoa, that role would have been wild XD Andrea the human battery. Crack open that egg for a quick boost.
Yeah with 3 executions the numbers do change. I was picturing 4 when I suggested it. Maybe something like, at the end of a cycle we get 2 (or whatever) energy if we managed to lynch at least one Apostle, but we don't gain more for lynching extras. That would at least minimise the information we gain, somewhat. And also, we only get the energy if we lynch a new Apostle, so we don't just keep lynching Countess for the cashmoney. (Though I don't know how that works if we lynched multiple Apostles in the first round. And it feels a bit complex, which is unfortunate compared to the clean solution of just getting energy for each Apostle kill.)
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Post by Kachu on Jun 14, 2023 15:08:37 GMT
egg. shiny and bald..
Mhm when you mentioned it my thought was only like 2 energy if you kill an Apostle at all. It's tricky though and I thought HARD on the prices for things but it might be best to adjust numbers if it's needed.
I don't know if we can really add another execution sadly. Which makes this specific aspect really tricky. I think I'll bring all this up to everyone shortly, though, when I get a few minutes, and see how it might come off to people. Something will change by the end of the day at least.
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Post by Panda on Jun 15, 2023 15:11:15 GMT
I have this inkling Saber might be in danger... like people want him dead. That would be pretty disastrous. I'll protect him this round.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 15, 2023 15:43:55 GMT
Your bravery will not be forgotten.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 17, 2023 2:04:45 GMT
You didn't die! Woohoo!
And Andrea got busy last night. You learn that Greg, Alune AND Vincent paid you a visit.
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Post by Panda on Jun 17, 2023 7:44:01 GMT
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang XD That's a lot of people to run away from.
A little concerning that Alune volunteered to be executed despite being a power role though. Unless that was secretly a ploy to pretend she was vanilla.
Oh, actually, I might have slightly misunderstood something. I only see 'non-factional' visits. Does that mean I wouldn't see if the Keyholder visited me? And the same for whatever minor power the Apostles have.
Edit: Another piece of feedback just came to mind. It's looking like Apostles only get one kill per round, presumably to prevent them just brute-forcing their way to the Keyholder. However, this (or more generally, the vanilla-Keyholder basis for the game) means Apostles are incentivised to kill vanilla Employees and leave power roles alone, to better find the Keyholder. That results in the odd situation of them being unable to kill power roles for the purpose of disabling them: for instance, if they knew Greg was a Detective and felt that was a threat, they still wouldn't really be able to kill him as it would waste a shot at taking down the Keyholder.
Edit 2: I can't tell if the Apostles have killed any of their own. As above, that makes it harder to catch the Keyholder, but in this case the benefits might be worth it, in that they make an Apostle look innocent. That's their ultimate aim, after all. Winning individual cycles is just one way they can improve their chances in the final midnight.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 17, 2023 14:21:59 GMT
Factional visits would be the Keyholder, the rotating role the Apostles have, as well as kills. You wouldn't see any of these. Of course nothing would work on you anyways.
I don't really like confirming this atm because it's not public but you're wrong about the Apostles only having one kill each round. I'm sure you can see how something like that would at least be possible given your role and the potential for others in the game.
Edit: I guess I actually shouldn't have said that? But I'm struggling to think of a reason as to why this is kept secret in the first place. I might go and reveal it at the end of the cycle so everyone is on the same page.
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Post by Panda on Jun 17, 2023 15:41:30 GMT
Historically in these games the Witch's kill count has been secret, but never for like a particularly good reason. It seems like the sort of mechanical information that would be public. I guess it's kinda fun to learn the details as we go? It's a detail that doesn't much affect Town actions anyway, at least early on in the game when they don't have enough information to work with, even if they knew how many the Witches kill. So, it doesn't cause any real problems (I think) and instead adds a bit of tension as people don't know how deadly the Witches are. Though after the first cycle it makes sense to reveal it. In normal Mafia, that's definitely the sort of mechanical information that's public from the start. Factional visits would be the Keyholder, the rotating role the Apostles have, as well as kills. You wouldn't see any of these. Of course nothing would work on you anyways. Neat! In that case, by sheer chance, I already have a pretty strong lead on role distributions. I have a role, of course, and I know four others: Alune, Vincent, Tangie and Greg. 5 in total. So there's only 3 power roles left among the other players, and everyone else is vanilla. Of those 3, at least one might have a passive role like I do, though BF4 didn't have any passive roles at all so that's not a given. Who knows, maybe they'll all visit me next round and I'll solve the entire game
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Post by Panda on Jun 18, 2023 23:24:27 GMT
Well, last chance Saber. You've been resistant to all my techniques thus far, not leaking a word about your role, but I WILL learn the truth. Let's do this!
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Post by Kachu on Jun 19, 2023 0:59:36 GMT
This might be when you finally get through to him...
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Post by Kachu on Jun 20, 2023 23:06:19 GMT
Nothing happens again as usual. Actually that's a lie. Carbon gave you a visit last night. Maybe he wanted to give you a spooky surprise?
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Post by Panda on Jun 20, 2023 23:31:18 GMT
:o
I don't know what I did to become such a magnet, but this is pretty great: including myself, I now know 6 out of the 8 non-vanilla players! After just one cycle, too.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 20, 2023 23:37:03 GMT
Yeah it’s pretty fun how that worked.
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Post by Panda on Jun 20, 2023 23:54:56 GMT
And now I see I'm the only passive power role. I might get visits from the other two next!
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Post by Panda on Jun 21, 2023 14:46:12 GMT
I'm worried that the correct play here is to just bank all the energy until the final midnight phase. At that point the Apostles can't mess with us anymore, and we can safely reveal all the information.
I'm also worried that, assuming Legion is an Apostle, we've already got 5 guaranteed non-Apostles. If we repeat this strategy in both of the next cycles, we might just deduce the full player distribution through the work mechanic alone, without really playing Mafia and without the Apostles being able to do much to stop it.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 21, 2023 15:04:02 GMT
The work mechanic is tricky, I agree. I'm not sure what can be done about that off the top of my head, because it'd be hard to object to this decided upon plan.
I forgot to mention it in the post again but you can only purchase 4 things at a time, no matter how much energy you have. Banking all the energy won't work.
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Post by Panda on Jun 23, 2023 8:05:27 GMT
Okay. Okay. I got this. Imprison that beautiful, bald man so no-one can do him any harm.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 23, 2023 14:11:32 GMT
You got it!
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Post by Panda on Jun 24, 2023 11:01:19 GMT
If the work-energy deduction plan ends up being too game-breaking, I can think of two potential solutions. They can be used together, too.
1. Apostles can choose whether to help or hinder when they work. 2. Every worker has a 10% chance to produce the opposite of what they intended.
These would make it so that Employees try to produce as much energy as possible, while Apostles are free to sabotage as they see fit, without worrying about being discovered. Even if a round ends with 24 energy, it's no guarantee that every worker was innocent. If a round ends with less than 24 energy, we can't do the maths because Apostles might have mixed some +2s in with their -2s, and the 10% thing means any maths we can do is still unreliable.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 24, 2023 14:30:38 GMT
Hmm that's tempting. Though I think it's not unbalanced or anything, tbh. I feel like the plan that happened last time is actually reasonably easy to disturb. I'll keep this in mind though, they seem like good ideas!
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Post by Kachu on Jun 26, 2023 2:46:30 GMT
Yo this is crazy. But like. You didn't get killed this Dusk! Nice stuff!
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Post by Panda on Jun 26, 2023 9:14:38 GMT
WOW
I'm guessing that at some point people will stop visiting me, once it's clear they don't get any results. I wonder if the Apostles have figured out I'm the lamb yet? They have to assume that either I was protected, or that I have that role.
Once the Apostles know who I am, there's no benefit to me keeping quiet. However, so long as they're still in the dark, it's much better to stay quiet. It's hard to judge.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 26, 2023 15:56:36 GMT
Do keep in mind that even if you're targeted for a kill, by the mysterious ??? role, or the Keyholder, you wouldn't know. So maybe you've been visited EVERY time!! Who can say?
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Post by Panda on Jun 26, 2023 16:14:02 GMT
Might've been! Regardless, outside of the Keyholder who rotates, people are only likely to visit me maybe twice at most before giving up. Especially now that the Lamb is a publicly known role. And the Apostles share information so they only need to visit me a few times between them before they give up.
I've already been visited by most of the non-factional power roles. I don't know if I've been a kill target, but it's safe to say at least one Apostle has visited me with their power role. However, Wolf and Eagle are the only non-factional roles that receive feedback, and it seems like Monty (who hasn't visited me) is the Eagle, so there's no strong guarantee that the Wolf is both an Apostle and has visited me. Which means I'm still in the limbo state. The Apostles don't have quite enough Lamb-detecting power for me to be confident they've given up on targeting me, so I don't yet know if it's time to go public.
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Post by Panda on Jun 26, 2023 18:10:01 GMT
So, just for posterity: I'm assuming Monty was the Keyholder last time. It would explain why he's so adamant about Tangie being the killer. If he was the Eagle, his story wouldn't add up (I know Tangie has a non-factional power, so he would have seen her visit multiple people), and he'd have no way to be certain she killed Greg rather than just using a power on him. This would probably also explain he current actions: he very much wants the Apostles to think he's the Eagle, when in reality he's a vanilla Employee who can no longer be the Keyholder. Kind of feel bad for calling him out on it earlier, but at the time I didn't grasp the situation.
On an unrelated note, I find it funny people keep suggesting he's making himself the group leader. Outside of suggesting the energy plan, he's not really taken charge in any way. If anything he's been happy to cede to whatever the group's planning.
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Post by Kachu on Jun 26, 2023 18:31:30 GMT
It’s possible to target a victim with a role as well, to be clear.
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Post by Panda on Jun 26, 2023 18:40:34 GMT
Wait what? I don't understand.
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